The Gladyszes
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Adam Wójcik THE GLADYSZES The Pioneers of Colonisation in Pogórze Szymbark GORLICE 1948 Published by the Regional Committee in Gliwice 1 CREDITS TO Doctor Krystyna Pieradzka from Cracow for invaluable advice and instruction, the Management of the State Archives in Cracow for their permission to use their collection, Rev. Stanisław Pękala from Szalowa for reading Latin documents, Eng. Józef Barut from Gorlice for notes and to everybody who assisted me in collecting the material and publishing it I would like to give my sincere thanks. ADAM WÓJCIK Gorlice, 10th January 1948 2 Chapter I THE FOREST The silent and black Carpathian forest covers 200 kilometres with a wide strip the Western and Low Beskid along with Pogórze between Dunajec and San constitutes from centuries the southern border of Poland. On the high mountain slopes there blackened fir forests and spruce here and there interspersed with fairer larches. Slightly lower, on the tops of the arched hills they had green beeches, sycamores, ash-trees and elms. Rocky hills were covered with thickset hornbeams and white birches. And at the upland plains were grown over with branchy oaks and forked pine trees. In the forest shelters there were hidden dark green yews. In the damp valleys of numerous rivulets and streams there clustered alders, aspens, willows, elm-trees, hazels, rowans, cranberry trees, guelder roses, alder buckthorns, hawthorns and many other trees replenished the thicket of old forest that protected the country from the attacks of the enemies from Hungarian site. COLONISATION While there was a forest, we were not there. But already in the prehistoric times, from the neolithic era through the settlement period there flow the waves of the Polish from the fertile Little Poland Upland along rivers Dunajec, Biała, Wisłoka to the territory of the Carpathian forest first for hunting and bee-keeping purposes, later searching for trade routes through the Carpathians to the Hungarian Lowland and finally, for settlement purposes. During the reign of the first Polish dynasty, the Piasts, from the 10th to the 12th century the forest in the Carpathian Pogórze downstream of Raba, Dunajec, Biała and Wisłoka owing to the colonisation activity of Boleslaus the Brave, Casimirus 3 the Restorer, Boleslaus the Bold, Henry the Bearded as well as the numerous knight’s families such as the Bogorias, the Gierałts, the Odrowążs and with the help of the Tyniec and Koprokrzywnice monasteries aiming at organising the south-eastern protection of the border. The partition of Poland, the internal struggles and the Tartaric raids destroyed in the 13th century the flourishing Polish settlements in Pogórze and on the borders of the Carpathian forest. The task to people and cultivate the southern Polish borders is indefatigably continued by Poland’s subsequent kings: Boleslaus the Shy, Leszek the Black, Ladislaus the Ell and Casimirus the Great whose widely spread colonisation action gave stunningly fruitful results. Several new towns were established in Pogórze: Ciężkowice, Bobowa, Gorlice, Pilzno, Frysztak, Dukla and dozens of new villages and the range of the dense Polish settlement reached the Carpathian watershed, which later on got jagged only due to the Wallachian colonisation. Among the pioneers of the Polish colonisation in Pogórze and in the Carpathians, especially in the Ropa river valley in the 14th century and later on the Gładysz family distinguished itself. It is difficult to faithfully and completely reconstruct the remote past today. However, the existing fragmentary data indicates that the Gładysz family used to play an important role in the history of the lands neighbouring with the Carpathians and can boast not only with the pioneer settlement work, but also organisational work for the benefit of the Polish state and the cultural work whose innumerable monuments have survived until today. THE SILESIAN GŁADYSZES According to the not so very precise Kneschke armorial the Gładyszes are one of the oldest Silesian families. Certainly, as the name Gładysz (from Polish gładki (smooth) – ogłada (refinement) itself suggests, the family is of Slavonic origin. 4 Jan Gladiss was mentioned in Silesia in 1231 as the courtier of St. Hedvig the Silesian, while the document for Oleśnica in 1376 mentions Henzlin Gladis. As a result of the German onrush on the western lands during the Piast dynasty reign, many people deserted those territories and settled down in the south- eastern regions of the country. One branch of the Gładysz family also migrated from Silesia to Little Poland and connected with the Gryfits family and adopted the Gryf (Eng. Griffon) or Sveboda coat of arms. THE GRYFITS COAT OF ARMS The description of that coat of arms runs in the following way: “On the red background there is a white griffon whose front part, from the head is of likeness to a hook-nosed eagle with a tongue hanging out, with two wings spread as if for flight and whose other part is reminds of a lion standing on hind legs with its tail raised upwards”. Above the crown there protrudes half an eagle with one trunk.” It most probably originates from Leszek III who granted it to his sons on the division he made and changed an eagle into the griffon to mark the difference. Some duchies, such as Kaszuby, Pomerania, Szczecin, Zgorzelice used that sign as their coat of arms. Jaxa, the prince of the Lusatian Serbia, the son of Leszek III whose descendants returned to Poland during the reign of the subsequent Boleslauses is considered to be the progenitor of that family. Jaxa Wincenty Światopełk, the heir of Bochnia and his brother Krekocha founded monasteries in Trzemieszyna and Jędrzejów lavishly paying to the Miechów convent. THE SĄCZ LANDS Initially, the Gładyszes settled in the Sącz lands in Little Poland where, under the protection of the kings and the superior knighthood very often brought here from abroad, Polish colonisation had developed earlier taking advantage of the water trade route Dunajec – Poprad connecting our country with the southern side of the Carpathians. 5 Following the first raid of the Tartars the Sącz land briskly rose after its coming under the ownership of Kinga on the basis of the document which, in 1257 the prince Boleslaus the Shy issued during the session of the regional council in Korczyn. The excerpts of this document read: “In the Name of the Lord Amen. We, Boleslaus, by God’s grace the prince of Cracow and Sandomierz, announce to all our contemporaries and their descendants that in an attempt to be, from our earliest years, obedient to signs and the orders of the Almighty Creator as well as in order to better, more peacefully and with God’s mercy rule our state, following the wise advice of the Reverend in Christ Father Wiesław, the Bishop of Cracow and in accordance with the resolution of all our notables and lords, calling God for help, have connected in marital bond with Her Majesty Kunegunda, the daughter of the His Majesty Hungarian king Bela IV not only with gold, silver and precious stones according to the Providence and the royal richness excellently enriched, but above all ornate with the treasures of virtues and respectable manners who from God’s inspiration in the days of our most violent need has granted us generously the joy of the earthly support. When, during the bad time from God’s will because of our sins, the Tartars ravaged the land subjected to us with fire and sword, suddenly inundated our land with the streams of the Christian blood, when, in the face of the annihilation and the dispersion of the farmer all seemed to be lost and we were devoid of the ability to order, as before, the noble custom and bounty dear to all; when the stoniness of the hardened hearts did not leave any money in our treasury and hence brought us to considerable want and inability to find means to pay our knighthood – it was then when our venerable and celebrated Lady, our beloved spouse, seeing us in such a heavy worry, prompted by the inexpressible and infallible compassion of her tender love, taking pity on us from the depth of her soul offered several times the money from her dowry for the payment to the knights with the provision that we pay the said sum in its place and time. Which we did. However, as among the frequent and varied adversities we were incapable of keeping our promise, we, following the wise advice of Reverend Father Prandota, the Bishop of Cracow, as 6 well as by resolution and unanimous will and permission of our lords, we hereby grant and transfer to her irrevocably and in eternal tenure the Sącz land honestly and totally without the slightest diminution together with all knightly power such as we ourselves wield with the total right to duties, with forests spreading as far as the Hungarian border, with rivers, fishing, ponds, inns, mills, meadows, pastures and all other attachments and dependencies whatever they might be named in such a way as she could be able to sell the said land, to trade it, to grant, hire or expropriate herself from it in any other manner. In which land we do not leave to our descendants any rights, only the right of defence, care and support instituted for the benefit of our beloved spouse, so that, in the time of our being called by God from the bodily prison to the eternal journey, the Celebrated Lady, supported with joy and assistance against the storms of the bad times would not put, neither during her life, nor after her death, the said land in the hands of other people or she would not tear it apart from the Polish nation, but so that she would show it the same motherly love and unshaken faith, as she undisturbedly and unchangeably showed to the said nation and still keeping it, would nestle it to herself as she has hereto done.